Sureiyaazu: Antonym and Resolution
by Hay Lin La
Summary: Lina, Gourry and Naga are being hunted by someone who clearly wants them dead. Meanwhile, Amelia and Zelgadis set out to Drumroll please spread justice and look for Zel's cure. Double story that switches back and forth between LGN and AZ. L/G and A/Z


Okay, this is another attempt at an LGN story, so don't laugh at me. The old one is on permanent haitus. The couples Lina/Gourry and Amelia/Zelgadis shall appear.

Also, there are slight mixes of anime and novel worlds, but nothing too threatening to me, as the authoress.

This was written for my Creative Writing AND Publishing (many people forget the publishing part), so there are many explanations of things that most you probably already know (or SHOULD know, seeing as you're here, on the archives for Slayers fanfiction).

* * *

"Elmekia Lance!" I shouted again and again, throwing each one at a different Lesser Demon. I could only keep this up for so long while I waited for Jellyfish Brains to get back. I was running out of energy.

Well, I can tell you're all totally lost. I am the beautiful Lina Inverse, Sorceress Extraordinaire, and lately, things have been getting a little weird. Gourry, my strong-as-an-ogre-dumb-as-dirt-but-still-sweet companion, and I haven't gotten a days rest for nearly two weeks now. Lesser Demons have been plaguing us every step of the way. We were getting really sick of the whole situation.

"Ahh! Help me," a very feminine voice echoed through the forest greenery.

I know I probably shouldn't go see who that is, but what if they're rich? U could get payed a pretty penny. Besides, our traveling funds are getting a little low. I hadn't run into any bandits lately, so I couldn't, uh... _liberate_ their treasure.

Luckily for me, Lesser Demons couldn't fit through the tighter thickets of trees. Those large unnaturally broad shoulders just weren't doing it for them.

A loud crash sounded behind me as I ran.

They _could,_ however, break through them. Whatever I did, they were going to chase and attack me anyway, so I might as well go find that girl.

As I ran through the close knit trees, worry swelled in inside me. What if Gourry was fighting them without a sword? What if he hadn't made it through the cave? Painfully, I swallowed my fears down. Gourry could handle himself fine without me.

Oh, who am I kidding? Gourry can't fight without a magic swords. Not against Monsters, anyway. And what if a higher leveled Monster came along?

_Halt!_ Wait just a second. What would a random girl be doing in the middle of the forest in the middle of nowhere? Of course! Trying to trick me into letting my guard down, then attacking me. Monsters are _so_ pathetic.

Well, time to rush to that cave. "Ray Wing!" I took to the air, flying over the forest much more efficiently, and not to mention safely. The mountains were ahead of me, along with the cave rumored to hold the Elmekia Blade, which was our whole purpose of being here in the first place.

You see, Gourry is the descendant of the legendary Warrior of Light, who defeated the White Beast, Zanaffar, and saved the remaining wreckage of Old Sairaag (which I might add was destroyed again, along with New Sairaag and the 'fake' New Sairaag through a series of large battles between Gourry, two of our other friends, Dark Lords, a Red Priest and I). Anyway, he had the Sword of Light, which was used to kill Zanaffar. It could cut through both humans and especially Monsters, whose main bodies were on the Astral Plan. Keyword here: _had. _Unfortunately, the Sword was given back to its original owners from another world.

Now we're looking for a sword that could rival his old one. The Elmekian Blade was said to only cut Monsters and other Astral beings. Even if the edges were blunt to humans, Gourry could probably still kill several in one blow. That's still not even a close example of how deadly Gourry is with a sword. Besides, he once told me he came from Elmekia, so in a way, its his birthright.

Well, anyway, the last time we were ambushed, (about half an hour to an hour ago,) I told him to go on ahead and grab the sword while I hold these weaklings off. Though they were weak, their numbers were pissing me off. And Gourry might be in trouble.

Suddenly, many dark beings made both their presences and physical form known around me. The Winged Lesser Demons had come out to play. Worse yet, I had no cover in the air. Pain exploded in my sides, and my oh-so nice nervous system decided the rest of my body should get a taste. The main problem with this was that one, I couldn't handle pain very well, and two, the Ray Wing spell requires all my concentration to keep the barrier up, and since it didn't have my undivided attention, I now plummeted to the ground.

"OH HO HO HO HO HO HO!!!"

_N-n-no way! Not that laugh! Anyone but her!_ That wasn't Santa Clause. That wasn't even close. Santa -ignoring the fact that he's a fairytale for children- couldn't laugh in such a shrill way. There was only one person who could laugh like that.

"OH HO HO HO HO! Lina Inverse, you shouldn't be so careless!"

The Demons seemed to be in pain at the sound of her laugh. I didn't blame them. The only reason my own ears weren't bleeding was because I was used to that horrible sound. I mean, c'mon. Try listening to ELEVEN of them laughing at once. I fainted from sheer terror. Out of the few weaknesses I have, many of her was one of them, right in front of slugs and one behind my older sister... I shudder at the thought.

"It is I, your greatest rival, Naga the Serpent! OH HO HO HO HO!"

_Thank you, Captain Obvious. I know who you are. I've been trying to forget for, oh, almost four years now, but the laugh stays forever emblazoned in my brain._

"That horrible sound!" the Demons cried.

I felt Naga grab my arm, which felt like it was going to come off. It tugged at my wound, causing me more of that lovely thing called pain. I began to wonder how she didn't pass out at the sight of my bleeding wound. She used to pass out from the tinniest little scratches. Maybe she got over it.

Okay, I think I've lost you all again. Naga was my traveling partner back before Gourry was. She was always bothering me with her random appearances. She would always appear out of the blue and make things more complicated. Of course, there were the times we worked together. She had an affinity for water, ice, and golem spells. The thing about her golems though, was that they sucked anatomy wise. Once, she created a dragon golem whose head was bigger than the rest of the body. It fell of a cliff and slid into the town below. A lot of her spells went weird, but she was still a good sorceress, and we dueled many an occasion.

"Your breasts haven't grown much, huh, Lina?" she teased.

My brow _twitched. Well compared to yours... Grr! "_Shut up, Naga!" My breasts were a slight nerve point because they were small for my age... and I've been known to Fireball people for the nicknames I've received.

"Letting go, now!" She released my arms and allowed me to fall, knowing full well I would cast a Levitation spell, which was like a slower version of Ray Wing. Ray Wing was for high speeds closer to the ground. The higher you are, the slower you go. Levitation is always slow, and mostly for carrying heavy things around, like the magicless Gourry for example. Also good for slowing landings for rapidly approaching grounds.

I lowered myself onto a tree branch and quickly cast Recovery on my wounds. Recovery was a minor healing spell. I don't know any big ones because I prefer wrecking things as opposed to fixing them. Normally when we're in big trouble though, Amelia, the princess of the White Magic Capital of Seyruun, was involved. Sometimes even Sylphiel, a priestess who knows Resurrection and can bring people back from the brink of death, which she has done for me once. Her black and shamanic magic sucked, but she could make one hell of a protection spell.

Anyway, I waited for the magic to kick in and stood up, not casting Levitation. For the next spell, I would need all my concentration. "_Darkness beyond twilight. Crimson beyond blood that flows. Buried in the stream of time, is where your power grows. I pledge myself to conquer, All the foes who stand..._" As soon as Naga heard the first line of that spell, she'd cast one more Astral spell and switched from a Levitation spell to a full speed Ray Wing spell, heading for the hills, well, mountains, really. This next spell was going to be humongous. "_Before the mighty gift bestowed in my unworthy hands..._" This was the strongest spell I had that didn't risk my own life in casting it. "_Let the fools who stand before us be destroyed, By the __power you and I..." _There was ruby red energy in a fair sized ball in my hands. I thrust it up above my head. "_Possess!"_ I brought it down as I added the final words. "DRAGON SLAVE!" From the 'fair sized ball of ruby red energy' in my hands, a red dragon of energy erupted from it, springing forth and causing a large explosion in the center of the enemies. The dragon itself wasn't actually a dragon, but just the form the spell took. It did nothing but direct the spell straight to its target.

Now, when I saw large, I mean enormous. It was enough to take out a small city and entire towns and villages. I've been made an outlaw in a lot of cities because of it, but I've been the savior of a few, too.

I looked at the large perfect crater around me. I was in the center of the spell when I released it. The thing is, the caster of this spell is protected by magic wards that can ward off other spells and from the Dragon Slave they themselves cast.

I think I blew up half a mountain since half of one was missing in a circular pattern corresponding with the spell.

"You really overdid it once again, Lina!" I guess Naga didn't get away fast enough. Well at least the Demons were all dead, gone and buried. She crawled out from the rubble of the edge of the crater. "Freeze Bullet!" A large ball of ice came from her hands and shot towards me.

I wasn't really surprised, and had my counter spell ready. "Fireball!" The red and blue balls collided and vanished because they canceled each other out. If it wasn't already obvious, I have a penchant for fire spells.

Something caught my attention. The sword at Naga's hip, which probably would never be used to shed blood, looked rather cool and had a white gem in its pommel. Our battle already forgotten, she noticed my greedy, sparkly eyes. "I see you're in this region for the Elmekian Blade, too. That figures."

_Wait a moment! What about Gourry? What the hell happened?_ "Naga," I screeched. "What did you do to him!?"

"To who, Lina?" she asked.

Why is it that I always end up traveling with the obliviously dumb ones? Well, I guess Zelgadis, my stone-skinned chimera friend held up a good conversation, but he's always looking for the cure to his ailment, and normally only joined us in our quests for that reason. "Long blond hair, really tall, baby blue armor, summer blue eyes!"

"Oh, you mean him? Well, we both arrived at the cave at the same time, and so I froze him with the Ly Brim spell because I wanted the Elmekia Blade. Then I summoned a golem to fight off the guardian dragon while I grabbed this."

"You did WHAT!? Guardian DRAGON!?" Now I was pissed off. I positioned my hands for a spell. "Fireball!" I took her by surprise, and I left her trashed and twitching in the crater of my Dragon Slave, running off towards my now frozen Jellyfish- I meant _the _now frozen Jellyfish Brains, as in Gourry and I don't have a romantic relationship, even though I sacrificed myself to save him and he brought me back from nothingness itself. Um, never mind. Moving on now.

Now you see what I mean by Naga making things complicated? They were about to get worse.

--

Somehow, Naga managed to catch up to me as I approached the cave, Ray Winging the whole way. Surely enough, in the center of a puddle, a still iced form of my- er, _the _blond haired warrior. I cast Flare Bit, releasing around twenty-five little fire balls that I dropped like dust onto the immobilized and probably very cold Gourry, making sure to melt his head first. As soon as I finished, I somehow managed to catch his soggy, heavy form. The armor didn't help any as I lowered him to the ground. He wasn't quite breathing right, but at least he was breathing at all. Of course he wouldn't be able to breathe inside there.

Deciding to give him CPR, I gently placed my hands above his face. "Diem Claw!" A strong wind gusted from my hands into his mouth. What, did you expect me to give him mouth to mouth or something?

He awoke with quite a start, trying to exhale. "Lina!" he cried out.

"Consider that payback for that time you tricked me into thinking you gave me mouth to mouth when you really kicked me in the back to get me to breathe again," I told him.

"I still say you seemed disappointed that I didn't," he teased.

"Shut it," I retorted, aware that my face was probably red.

Suddenly Gourry leaped up as my elf-like hearing kicked in. He threw himself at me and knocked us both to the ground as the dragon's flame breath was above us. I could hardly breathe under all the weight of his armor. If he wasn't warm before, he should be now. He got off me and we stood up, deciding to start running.

"Damn," he cursed. "I wish I still had my old sword."

"You just stay back. Lina and I will deal with this," said Naga.

"But..." Of course he wasn't going to just bow out like that.

"To my horror, Naga's right, Gourry. Leave this one to us." I don't understand why, but I was sad as his face dropped.

"Okay," he reluctantly agreed, splitting off from us as we turned around.

"Ray Wing!" we both shouted at once, taking to the air, but sticking close to the trees for speed.

"Hey, Lina, wanna try that strategy we used on that Gaizno guy back in Culvert oh so long ago?"

"After you," I offered. This was a very basic tactic, so I won't explain too much in detail. Pretty much, we split up, I cast Freeze Bullet, Naga casts Freeze Bullet, I cast Freeze Bullet, and so on. Of course, Gaizno also had a barrier so I ended up slipping away while Naga kept casting Freeze Arrow. I cast the Dragon Slave and boom, the end. Unfortunately, I don't have the energy to cast the Dragon Slave again right now. Normally I would, but I've been through a lot of stress lately. Besides, I can't cast it in the air.

"Naga, did you actually have a plan or are we making it up as we go?!" I shouted to her from the opposite side of the dragon.

"I was just making it up as I went along," she admitted shamelessly. I smacked my forehead and sighed. Of course Naga didn't have a plan. She never had a plan and she always overlooks the details. "Lina, cover me!" she called out.

I wasn't sure what she was up to, but if she had a plan that didn't involve me firing off large explosions, that was good. "Damu Bras!" I shot many spells at it while Naga disappeared from sight. What the hell's she doing anyway?

"Rah Tilt!" A blinding light made me cover my eyes and I heard the dragon fall to the forests below. _I didn't know she could cast that._ Rah Tilt is pretty much a Dragon Slave for the Astral Plane. In other words, it attacks a person's spirit. I know Zelgadis and Amelia can cast it, but not Naga.

Suddenly I felt blood lust behind me, and I had no time to react. It was a middle-ranking Monster. _Awe man._ The last time we fought one, (we being Amelia, Zel, Gourry and I,) I had to fake my death to get a good shot at it. (It's safe to say Gourry wasn't pleased, because he actually hit me, albeit lightly, and asked me to consider his feelings next time. That was the only time Gourry ever hit me, other than this one incident where he was under Hellmaster Phibrizzo's control... oh never mind. Details, details.)

Somehow, I blacked out shortly.

--

"Lina-chan!" Naga cooed. "Time to get up!"

I grumbled, tossed a little, and tried to get back to sleep. I was tired.

"Lina, get up or I'll give you the best wake up call I can think of!"

"Laugh and I kill you," I warned.

"OH HO HO HO HO HO! Why would I wake you up like that? I was referring to a water spell to the face."

Some days I wonder if she knows she does that. I sat up, but I felt two muscular hands push my shoulders back down.

"Lina, you're still injured. Don't move around," Gourry warned.

"Ugh. What happened while I was out cold?"

Judging by the look on both their faces, I had been in pretty dire straights.

"Well, the Monster knocked you out of the sky with a spell kinda like the one that Rezzi guy used on you."

"Rezo," I absently corrected. You get used to Gourry's horrid memory after a while. "Yeowch. That explains why I was out right away. Then what?"

"Well, you were in desperate need of healing, so I lent Gourry the Elmekian Blade and set about healing you with Resurrection," Naga said.

_Does-not-compute!_ Wait just a second here. "You know Resurrection?" I asked, jaw dropped.

"Well, of course, Lina. There are still many things you don't know about me. OH HO HO HO HO HO HO!"

"Now I know where you get it from," Gourry muttered. "You sometimes laugh like that when you're about to blow someone up."

_I do?_ "Well, anyways, Naga, what are you doing here?"

"Well, I happened to know that you were digging around for legendary swords, and the easiest one to find if you know where to look and who to threaten, is the Elmekian Blade, so I simply beat you to it."

In other words, she _knew_ I traveled with Gourry. Everyone knew that. Which means she attacked him full well knowing who he was. Which in turn, meant I was pissed off. _Gah! What is wrong with me? Snap out of it, Lina. When did I start thinking of Gourry so protectively. It's not like I haven't frozen him in ice (by accident) before._

"Why are you here, though?" I tried again.

"Simple. The Demons have been plaguing me as well, so I think we should team up for this one."

"Oh... How long until I'm allowed to move?"

"An hour or two."

Great! Then that's when I would duel her properly. You see, the whole reason we stopped traveling together was a ruse by Naga. She told me that she wasn't worthy of my presence and told me that I should head to Atlas City to meet a prince. That was quite possibly the biggest and best mistake of my life. Bad side: The prince was the _First Royal Successor_ Phillionel El Di Seyruun. Good side: I got to meet Gourry, Zelgadis, Amelia, Sylphiel, Filia, and unfortunately Xellos, a Monster Lord's general who also goes by the Trickster Priest. Enough said. I got to save the world once... twice... thrice, four, five... hmm.... somewhere around five or six times. I can't believe I lost count. Well, whatever.

"So you've been attacked too, right?" Lina asked.

"Constantly. These guys certainly understand the meaning of hard workers."

"So, are we sticking together for another adventure?" I asked.

"Of course. You did swear to me your life, Lina," Naga reminded me.

But I didn't remember. "When did I ever do that?" I shouted defensively.

"Before we rescued Serene Fitzmire from the bandits _you_ abandoned her to."

Suddenly I remembered that she said she'd tag along if I swore my undying allegiance to her, which was stupid, because I could have handled the whole situation on my own. "I thought you were kidding."

"No, I don't kid, Lina."

_My ass you don't._ "Whatever, but I have one more request."

"And what is that?"

Gourry must have seen the sparkles in my eyes because he sighed as I sat up. "Please please please please give Gourry the Elmekian Blade! You don't even use swords!" I put on my best innocently cute face.

Naga harrumphed and turned. "What are you willing to put on the line for it?"

I reached for my change purse that was hidden in secret pockets in my cape. "How much do you want?"

"I don't want money, Lina. Try again."

"You... don't... want... money?" I repeated again. Being the daughter of merchants does that to you. I once beat Gourry for slicing a coin evenly in half, but I felt better after he managed to sell them for more than they were worth.

"Nope."

"Then what _do_ you want?"

"If you and Gourry here ever get married, I get to be maiden of honor."

Gourry and I both managed to choke on air. "What?"

"Do you really _want_ me to repeat myself?" she teased, grinning.

I looked from Gourry to Naga and hung my head in defeat. "Deal." I looked up excitedly. "Now gimme that sword!"

"You mean Gourry."

"Yeah, whatever just gimme gimme gimme!"

"Not so fast! We're sealing the deal in blood."

My face turned dead serious. "Naga was terrified of blood, your laugh was out of pitch, and you're completely out of character. Who are you really?"

Naga looked amused. "Actually, Lina-chan, I lost my voice a few days ago."

That sentence hit me hard. A sorceress without a voice is like a swordsman without a sword. Naga had to fight all those Demons alone, without magic, which meant she probably got a little cut up (well that was putting it mildly). She must have gotten used to the blood, and if she could cast something as strong as Resurrection, she could cast Recovery. She had also been trying not to look at it too much.

"Sorry," I murmured, kind of embarrassed.

"Don't worry about it Lina. I don't expect one as young and naive as you to understand right away. So, about that wedding detail..."

"Well, if you're really Naga, then I have no regrets doing this. Fireball!" Naga came out crispy black. Was it ever good to be me!

* * *

Should I continue this? Please review. I'm creatively depressed and if Illisea tries to cheer me up with another clown impersonation, I think I might snap and kill her.


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